Pirate Bay Founder Sued in Russia

Gottfrid Svartholm

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A torrent tracker associated with Gottfrid Svartholm is accused of illegal online distribution of films and TV series, including recent box office hit "Stalingrad" and U.S. hits "Game of Thrones" and "Boardwalk Empire."

MOSCOW – Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm is being sued in a Moscow court for illegal online distribution of TV series and movies, including recent local box office hit Stalingrad and HBO hit showGame of Thrones.

The Moscow City Court has accepted several lawsuits filed against Russian torrent trackers Rutor.org and Kinozal.tv by major local TV and movie producers, including VGTRK, Gazprom Media, Central Partnership, Amedia, Non-Stop Production and Star Media.

Svartholm, who is currently serving a two-year prison sentence in Sweden for a hacker attack, and his company PRQ Inet KB are listed as the owners of the domain Rutor.org. The Moscow City Court therefore said that Svartholm is the defendant in the cases filed against Rutor.org.

No information about the owners of Kinozal.tv was immediately available.

The plaintiffs claim that Rutor.org and Kinozal.tv illegally distributed online popular TV series and movies, including this fall’s box office champion Stalingrad by Fyodor Bondarchuk, local hit LegendaNomer Semnadtsat (Legend No. 17) and such popular series as Likvidatsiya (Liquidation), Interny (Interns) and Univer (University).

They also claim that such U.S. TV series as Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire were made available illegally.

One verdict against Rutor.org and Kinozal.tv has already been made, under which the online video services are fined and prohibited from the distribution of the local TV series Institut Blagorodnykh Devits (Noble Ladies’ Institute), originally aired by network Rossiya 1.

A spokesperson for the Moscow City Court told The Hollywood Reporter that the hearing into the other cases involving Svartholm is scheduled for Dec. 10.

As of Tuesday, Stalingrad and Legend No. 17 were no longer available on Rutor.org, but Game of Thrones was.